THE DIPPER'S NEST 91 



found no sign of the dippers ; then, leaving 

 the water's edge and ascending a steep, badly 

 drained pasture, I crossed a cattle-path ankle- 

 deep in mire, turned into a copse of oaks and firs, 

 and from between the tree -trunks gazed long and 

 steadily through my field-glass at the brook, 

 that, winding along the gorge far below, gleamed 

 in the light of the sunny April day. A moorhen 

 was feeding in the grass by the great crag at the 

 neck of the gorge, and a few yards farther on a 

 restless grey wagtail ran hither and thither over 

 the pebbles. 



But I could see nothing of the dippers till, 

 after a few minutes, I laid aside my glass and 

 searched with the naked eye the nearest reaches 

 of the stream. At the comer beneath the scat- 

 tered oak-trees, the rock had many generations 

 ago been cut into a sheer precipice, and between 

 the precipice and an old mossy wall the course of 

 the brook had been deflected into a leat which 

 opened towards the gate from a roughly built and 

 leaky dam. In the shallows near, both dippers 

 were busy at work, and for a time I watched them 

 moving in and out of the ripples. Suddenly one of 

 the birds flew off, turned the corner, alighted at 

 the water's edge near the moorhen, rose again, 

 and disappeared at a spot directly in the shelter 

 of an oak-tree jutting from the crag. There, 

 evidently, she had entered her nest. 



